The Academia Europaea is the European-Union equivalent of the British Academy and the Royal Society, an international learned society composed of leading experts in the physical sciences and technology, biological sciences and medicine, mathematics, the letters and humanities, social and cognitive sciences, economics and the law. It was founded in 1988 and currently has c.3000 members, drawn from across the whole European continent. Only 24 of these are UK Classicists, so Professor Dickey joins a select group.

This honour is wholly independent of the British Academy election, as each election was based on a distinct and lengthy peer-review process. The rare double honour is testimony to Professor Dickey’s standing in the international scholarly community as well as in the UK.